Five days passed as the Dead marched across the northern forests and into the northern tundra. They marched through day and night, mana smoke trailing their path. As the temperature dropped, their pace held, a shell of crackling ice around pairs of glowing lighthouses piercing the frosty fog.
At the end of their march, they were greeted by a massive ring of towers, surrounding the glittering jewel that was the Crystal Empire. Quartave flicked the edge of her hood up, the only one of the group still needing a proper body temperature. “Alright, Evens, Dimi, you're the infiltration team. Get set up to break into the towers. The combat team, Gladas, Wallace, Barnabee, Antibodies: get into position near the back side of the Empire. Blackbird, set up an overwatch. Keep an eye on anomalous movement.
"As for you, Cycle, you’re with me.
“We have visitors."
The tower team set into a relaxed lope away from Quartave. There was still a bit of time before the operation truly started. As they crested a snowdrift, they spotted glittering golden light marching closer.
Dimi slowed, squinting at the army. She could see the silhouette of Quartave and Cycle below them, walking towards the army. Figuring that she had everything under control, she turned to catch up to Evens, who had could no longer hide his excitement and started vibrating in anticipation.
“You’re pretty dang excited about this.” Dimi noted, keeping pace by his side.
“I always wanted to fly,” Evens said, “And I always admired the beauty of birds. Their graceful arcs, their lustrous wing-feathers—”
“I’m going to stop you there before I get too weirded out,” Dimi interrupted, a sour expression crossing her beak.
“Yeah, yeah,” Evens ignored her discomfort with casual ease. “Anyways, this will be the first true field test of this arm. I would be able to figure out the forces it must endure, any control issues that may pop up, its responsiveness. Once Gladas figures out how to revise it, we can start working on even more attachments.”
“I see.”
As Dimi glanced at his legs’ cadence, she noticed that it was just the slightest bit off, its steady beat rougher, more uneven than it should be. She wasn’t sure if it were an issue of acclimation, uneven weight, or a fault. Something to bring up with Gladas and Evens when they got back, she figured.
They soon reached their targeted destination, one of several towers guarding the Dark King’s realm. They squinted from behind a snow pile. There were a row of guards standing around its base. Hrmm.
She slipped a mirror out of her bag, then carefully estimating the position of the sun, wiggles the light towards the sky. A few moments later, a blast of air precedes Blackbird backwinging before them, flickering shadows around his wings fading away as he folds them. “Blackbird,” Dimi asked. “Can you check the other towers and compare the amount of guards each have?”
The crow nodded, and took off with a blast of air, golden sparks trailing his wings. By now, the army had met the two forms of Quartave and Cycle. Evens’s nervous energy settled slightly at the sight. “I hope they’re doing fine.”
“If there were any physical danger, the Seer would have called this entire operation off and run for the hills.”
“But psychological dangers?”
Dimi frowned, unsure and unable to bring any assurances.
Blackbird came sweeping back, sliding to a slippery landing behind them. “The front most, least guards. The rear, the most. Dimi and Evens looked at each other. “We’re going to the back,” they said simultaneously.
Dimi squinted in suspicion. “I figured that the King would want to protect his most valued secrets with increased security. Why are you so eager?”
Evens pawed at the ground, chuckling nervously. “I wanted to claw more things.”
Dimi rolled her eyes. "Just keep it under control, will you?" She turned to scan the landscape around her. "Let's go that way. It'll keep us out of their sight."
"Wait," Evens asked, "wouldn't they have already seen Blackbird?"
In response, the crow's feathers flicker, a glittering sheath of prismatic ice flowing around his wings.
"Or he can do that. Sure."
Said bird takes off once more, the half of its body facing the enthralled guards during smokey white. The pair dash off into the snow, zig zagging to keep their profiles as low to the ground as possible.
In short order, the Iniltration pair end up waiting a distance away from another tower. As Blackbird said, there were indeed more bodies surrounding this one. Worryingly, however, were the number of guards facing inwards.
Snow accumulated on their backs as they waited. Dimi had sat down, eyes closed, breaths steady. Evens fidgeted slightly, his new claws kneading the snow.
Then, finally, an Indigo firework shot into the sky, sparks twirling away behind its path.
Dimi raised her head, her eyes sparkling with surging magic. "Showtime."
Half an hour earlier
Wally gently bumped Gladas’s shoulder as they ran. Gladas’s eyes were blank, unfocused, as she soul drifted with her pet watching from high above. “The Equestrian group is moving in. It seems that Sombra is preparing his own delegation to meet them,” she reported. “It will allow us to prepare an overwhelming first strike.”
Barnabee nodded. “Would we be going in as a group to break one line, or cause as much chaos through directional strikes?”
Gladas hummed. "We will need to occupy attention, paralyze their decision making. I would go with multiple directions."
"Understood."
Wally hummed in thought. "Gladas and I will control the air. Barnabee, you help the Antibodies prepare the ground against them. Give them nothing to stand safely on."
The Dog grunted in agreement. Stuart-5 squeaked in understanding from his perch on Barnabee's shoulder, his legs too short for the speed and distance they needed to cover.
Several minutes later, they approached the shimmering border of the Empire. "Blend into the shadows," Wally reminded as they began to slow down. "Suppress yourself until there's nothing left. Sombra must not realize our intrusion. And remember your training. No fatalities."
With that, Wally snapped his wings open and leapt into the air, Gladas following shortly after. Barnabee nodded and, flexing his claws, started plowing through the snow and frozen dirt. The Antibodies hopped down and followed behind him.
Wally and Gladas crept over rooftops, under rafters, through shadowed alleyways. There was little hoof traffic; it seemed the King had called a city-wide congregation order. Perhaps as a show of force or demonstration of strength to the Equestrian Crown. Wally frowned, tapping the side of his mask in thought. This would make it causing distractions aplenty easy, though also taking away his ability to control the situation. Well, nothing to it, then. He wiped a bit of blood off the side of his beak and leapt for the next balcony.
As predicted, much of the populace were crowding the main center street leading out of the Empire, arranged in rows to allow a clear path down the middle. Near the entrance of the castle, he spotted an ornate carriage slowly rolling towards him. There you are, he thought. Glancing around, he saw the barest hint of a bump hanging down the side of a building. Fetching a pocket mirror from one of his pouches, he flickered reflected sunlight towards her. North. Keep watch.
A few moments later, the shadow replied with her own light. Acknowledged.
After that, it was waiting. The carriage moved up the street. The golden armor of the Equestrian delegation moved towards the border. The sun moved towards its apex.
The delegations met. The neutral, almost desperately hopeful faces on the Princesses turned into a scowl.
An indigo flare burned through the sky.
Wally let a blood flecked breath escape his beak as his wings slowly unfolded. A high pitched hoot bounced through the alleyways as he entered the wind on silent feathers. The hunt begins.
I can't help but worry about guys like Evens. He just seems to be enjoying himself too much despite all the death. Granted, he's at least embraced his lack of mortality and what he can do about it, but it's people like that who might take things too far for the sake of their curiosity and experimentation. Then again, Evens is clearly more interested in experimenting on himself than on others. So that's... reassuring?
He's definitely a lot of fun to read though.
Evens: Dead and Loving It!
7386781
It wasn't fully explained, but I had a deleted "first chapter" that sorta fleshed out Evens's character a bit more. In my head, he was supposed to be a cool older brother kind of guy. Loyal, upbeat, etc.
And like every single story that I spend more than 12 months' effort working on (Multiverse concept, This Thing), all those heavily involved start ... fraying a little in the sanity department.
Wally lost some of his motivation, but angers violently.
Evens is now somewhat of a comedic sociopath
Cycle was already somewhat off his rocker from the start. Singleminded, paranoid, somewhat altered judgement. Plus, he was essentially 10 when his home turned ghost town. Don't know if I'm ever going to mention it, but he never went through puberty and is asexual now.
Dimitri is slightly apathetic. I put her in the Towers chapter first because I realized that she hasn't done much of anything, and needed to give her a moment of realization that she has to consciously force herself to take part more often.
The Seer is just a troll
Gladas is the least affected, besides being a lot more callous about corpses that don't talk back.
7387985
At the moment, he doesn't even have a hat yet. Just a dark, ratty cloak to keep snow off his back. Looking at the timeline, I'm a bit worried about how I'm even going to find a moment for him to even get a hat.
Thinking about it, I think I'm just going to pull an Alucard.
7390643
I can understand wanting to introduce characters and motivations first but massive world building, and background building, can kind of hurt the narrative flow and these moments then feel like exposition and essentially telling rather than doing a show. Then again, it also comes down to, what is the main part of the story? What is the story you're trying to tell? Writing all this stuff may be good for getting it in your head and possibly for prequels but the story makes it seem likes its focused on the Celestia incident and you must then realize that you've spent 2/3 the length of a novel doing what is essentially backstory/exposition.
I personally tend to follow the tighter is better philosophy where if the background isn't the actual exciting part of the story, then it probably should be brought up in either dialogue, narrator, or flashback. That way it can serve multiple purposes and add a bit of mystery if done through dialogue or narrator (like contrast current feelings with the past, show something about the current relevant personality of the character by showing what they focus on or how they specifically describe events to a particular audience). Actually thinking about audience has made me wonder why you chose this specific narrative structure that doesn't seem to necessarily flow naturally from the prologue which seems to hint more towards an entirely first person narrative from Cycle's point of view versus the jumbled version you've chosen?
7390871
I reread the chapter, yeah, I can see where you're coming from. Cycle seemed to be more focused on Celestia in it than what was actually portrayed so far. I kinda saw it as Cycle talking to Twilight about his history, though. It wouldn't really make sense if he started to rant at Twilight from the get go.
The Prologue does seem to read in a completely different tone, i apologize for that. The Watsonian reason is that they were trying to make themselves appear more approachable than what they actually are. The Doylist reason is that I wanted to get people's attention instead of the "bunch of guys sitting through a blizzard" that's essentially the entire first Arc, despite not really expecting much anyways. Frankly, I can cut out most of the overt Celestia references without changing much, and just have Cycle be somewhat pissed off at life in general. When I wrote that segment, I was still fairly influenced by Dorky's fics, and he didn't have a very high opinion of Celestia. It kinda bled over too much.
In any case, I would have to rewrite basically 80% of what I have right now if I were to try to focus more on the Celestia bits, but even then, Cycle doesn't have much of a reason to straight out tell Twilight of all ponies. Then again, some parts don't really seem like they're part of a story anyways. I mentally assumed Cycle was telling a much more abbreviated version, while I, the author, fleshed it out a bit.
And, uh, the whole Celestia thing was actually planned as a background event.
7391246
The issue you run into if you downplay the Celestia event is less interest but this fic seems like a bit of a niche piece anyway. Another issue for me is that you basically give us big background chapters for characters I don't really know before I've even developed interest in that character. Easiest example is the whole backstory involving the Enlightened. The story starts with Cycle and he hasn't even met the characters involved in the Enlightened part until that part starts. I have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction of "who are these people and why should I care?" That section is also contrasted by the issue that it's not a slice-of-life section and there really doesn't feel like there are any stakes involved. If someone in that story was to die, would it have affected me? No because I hadn't grown attached to the character. Did the bg affect a character I already knew and was interested in? Honestly no. It may explain why the group existed as it did but it did not affect Cycle in any obviously impactful way that was relevant to his life in that arc. I think this may be my biggest problem with this arc, you want me to care before I've grown to care. (Of course this may all be subjective and just my opinion and I'm an idiot sometimes.)
7391862
Ok, first off,
The reason everything seems so disjointed back then was ... writer's block. When I couldn't figure out what to write, I wrote something else and posted it. Plus, I hadn't been able to find an actual editor, and for a long period, there weren't any comments, so I kinda stopped caring about coherency.
Thinking about how the characters were introduced now, I think I might be able to add a subplot to give the stories a reason to exist instead of the jumbled mess it is now. Not sure when I'll finish it, maybe after this arc, and then stick it in hiatus for a bit while i plan it out. Might have to reshuffle everything, too.
Just binge read this. I gotta say I like it. Somewhat exposition heavy and lacking on the presence of the listener - after all this is Cycle telling Twilight a story, she is there too, or should be - but dub nonetheless.
Could do with more frequent updates, though. Following either way, kind of a cliffhanger this chapter but the next one will probably be better for it.
7563865
Oh yeah, the guy before you commented on that issue, and it forced me to take a good look at what I was thinking. Long story short, I wasn't expecting anyone to read it in the first place, so I just wrote whatever I wanted, and skipped something if I didn't know how to write it. That's why I had what was basically a midpoint chapter in the beginning, and what would be a character introduction near the end. That midpoint chapter was kinda supposed to be the partner to a deleted idea, in which Cycle walks away with nothing to live for, and then comes back not much better, but at least with a purpose.
The current prologue was somewhat of a late addition. In my original plan, Twilight wasn't part of the picture at all. I felt that the story needed something more eye catching than the dull thing I had before. Maybe too much.
Basically, right now I'm trying to think up a narrative for Cycle to build his story around, and reorganize the chapters so they're more chronological.
And procrastinating heavily by writing a bunch of random unrelated stuff.
7563865
haha this took way too long to rewrite
Wait. Just read the analysis but how is Berry Punch in this if the story is set 1129 years before the show?
10879312
Hint 1: Evens is testing out the ability to graft griffon parts onto himself.
Hint 2: There's a wine maker in the group
Wait hold on, what analysis?
10879688
I mean the story's summery.
"What do you do when you realize you are dying, with a lifetime measured in days?
What do you do when your destiny reads "Death"?
You tell to the world that your death is not the same as your end.
And never stop"
10879722
ahh
10879790
Do you plan on continuing the story at all?
10879803
All the chapters with a number in front instead of after are those I've finished rewriting. Got a few chapters left before i catch up to the last old version.
10879809
Sweet
Mmm, binging good fan fiction. Wonderful work!
11066456
Ah, alright. Cool!